Thoughts and prayers sent out. Again. And probably tomorrow, when yet another ‘senseless tragedy’ unfolds like clockwork at a school, a church, a shopping mall, a concert, a home, a military base, a movie theatre, a college, a…uh huh, there’s a list. Which gets read out once in a while people claim it’s ‘not the time’ to ‘politicize’ this ‘senseless tragedy’. And the slogans, so carefully crafted to ring like silver bells of ‘common sense’ in American ears.

Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.Mentally ill, a fruitcake, probably sick in the head, a psycho. A lone wolf.If you outlaw guns, only the criminals will have them.It’s just the price you pay for living in a free democracy that values rights and freedoms.Liberals just wanna take your guns away.Watch how all the liberals will use this to come for your guns.We don’t need to take away guns, we need a good guy with a gun then X wouldn’t happen.It’s too soon to talk about all this.Let’s have some respect for those at the funerals.Let’s not talk about this now while people are recovering, let’s show some respect.Now is not the time. It’s not time now. Time later for this discussion.We need to arm the teachers.We need to put police and soldiers in schools then this wouldn’t happen.An armed society is a polite society.Are you going to outlaw cars and knives and axes, lol? Automatic weapons are already outlawed.Well, what about Chicago?What about the no-go zones over in Europe? Do we want that here?I have the right to defend myself.

Oh yes, that list of excuses and slogans and easy-peasy pie sayings that soothe and comfort and assuage. They get offered like sacrifices to quiet those logical gods that whisper about gun control, legislation and doing something with laws and regulation that actually DO SOMETHING. The gods get their buckets of tasty hot fresh blood and go silent until the next ‘senseless tragedy’ and wait, with bored expressions, for the slogans and excuses to be slung at them. Those slogans that drip with gore, splattered child brains and destroyed internal organs fragments. Drip drip. Drip drip.

Oh and in America, you can get shot for free but try paying for it if you survive a mass shooting. At least we can crowdfund and GoFundMe for multiple bullet wounds and physical therapy needed to walk again and multiple surgeries to correct what a stray bit of metal did to your innards. Hallelujah, praise AmmoJesus, RifleGod and the Holy Machine Gun.

I know, no one can buy a legal machine gun, sure, uh huh. It’s too soon to talk about machine guns anyway. And machine guns don’t kill people, people kill people and they’d use a kitten to do it, so why don’t we ban kittens? LOL.

When Columbine didn’t make us change our ways here, when Sandy Hook got turned into a conspiracy theorist’s wettest, dankest, smelliest dream, when Orlando got used to…you wonder what it will take to take an actual look at GUNZ in America.

Others ask this one all the time. What will it take? We’re supposedly full of Christians here and allegedly love children and…then my head gives a soft little whump as my brain boils away as yet another ‘senseless tragedy’ repeats like an I Love Raymond episode over on Nick at Nite. We know the story, we know the characters involved, we throw up our hands and claim it’s all new. There’s even a laugh track flung at ‘libtards’ who try to ‘take our guns’. LOL, only out of my dead cold hands, libtard commie American-hating freeloaders! Freedom ain’t free! LOL LOL LOL

That familiar, played out trope of gun+man+lots of ammo= multiple deaths divided by Thoughts and Prayers. All of which sit over a We Must Do Something factor that never seems to get figured into that equation at all because Freedom and 2A, bitches.

Helped by the present-day actual mass shooter-helper called the National Rifle Association. Which seems to exist to sell as many guns as possible, rather than education, gun safety training, gun classes designed to teach respect and responsibility…uh. Mm. How much money flows to politicians…to keep the guns coming. To paint a picture of Americans clutching their guns at the least provocation…to bring up the Founding Fathers as gung ho gun-lovers…viva la gun. Oh sure.

Am I being hysterical and over-reactive and blaming this innocent saintly institution of American ideals for what a lone wolf psycho mixed up mentally ill lone wolf did? Prolly! After all, there’s just NOTHING WE CAN DO about GUN VIOLENCE in AMERICA. Second Amendment. Rights. Freedoms. Eagles. The flag. Liberals did this. We just have to accept such things because we’re all about freedom here. Freedom something something. Something freedom.

If someone gets sick from a strawberry in America, we regulate and even ban that red fruit and overreact and snarl and stomp about and give speeches during prime time viewing hours while looking serious and angry and resolved. We are a nation that DOES SOMETHING. Look at how we DO STUFF when SOMETHING BAD happens!

Oh look, something shiny…guns don’t kill people, so let’s ban abortions, send boxes of candy bars to poor people like that Blue Apron thingie because they don’t have jobs anyway; build a giant fencewall and shout the National Anthem with our fists to the sky because patriots and eagles flying and freedom.

I’m so tired of waiting, aren’t you, for the world to become good and beautiful and kind? Langston Hughes.

This was written a long time ago, in a world strangely just like now. Where minorities are hated and feared and blamed for everything wrong. Where racism is front and center, as it never really left the building AKA America. Where Christian power is cruel, cold and self-serving. Where ‘little people’ get stepped on with great abandon and reckless sadism by those with even an inkling of superiority that they are not ‘one of those takers’ or…

Yes. We’ve been here before.

Many times, in many ways. Where the divide between groups is Grand Canyon sized. The Grand Canyon might very well become a memory if the current gubbermint greedsters have their way with it and rape it death for its resources. Mining companies, oil conglomerates, private developers, yippee skip.

from Pinterest

I am a bit gloomy right now. A lot, actually, but I didn’t wish to rain on anyone’s parade. As you’d have to stir about and find an umbrella or maybe check the weather reports for a good day for a parade. I don’t want you actually paying attention to my rain, because I’d have to declare some sort of truth and then wearily defend it against those frog people from the ‘other side’. You know, those weird frog people called Pepto or Peepo or Peepie La Pew…yep.

from Snopes, who confirmed that, yes, Dr. Seuss did pen this. From 1939 or so.

Waiting for someone/s to come save us all is fucking exhausting. Waiting for some magical savior to rise from these streets and bitchslap the crap out of the current GOPers brings on real malaise and the need for cookies and milk and a long long long nap. Are we going to get an FDR-esque sort to rise from whatever’s left of American politics? A ruthless, ballsy/ovary-bold sort who takes on the Bad Guys and wins the day? FDR has taken on mythical status, and no, I never forget the actual man behind all that. Okay? Okay.

I don’t remember where I found this but I was never taught this in school…

It’s what we do here in America.

We wait for someone to come save us. Our politicians, our rock stars, our Hollywood stars, our…those with any sort of public face.

We wait placidly–except for those who take to the streets and shout things about oppression and a new dawn–for that mystical SOMEONE ELSE who will tell us where to squat and lean. “Where are our leaders?” has become the current battle cry…instead of an actual battle cry said by actual sorts who ‘stepped up’. As no one can agree or come together behind a solid banner…that squabbling over just what issue gets top billing instead of hey, let’s just get our people into office and then deal with this, that, the other. Bernie Bros versus everyone else versus feminists versus those who don’t need feminists because they’re not victims lol…yeah.

Pumpkincunt, the Great Pretender in Chief, the Liar’s Liar, made promises. Bigly ones. [Its still campaigning and holding rallies. Sad!] Those promises sounded super-bitchin’ and when said REALLY LOUD drown out the whispers that drift from the ‘other side’ that maybe this orange con-thing has never kept its word or been successful at much of anything at all except self-promotion. Fake news! You libtard losers should just get over it. You upset, snowflakes? Her emails and Pizzagate and Uranium One!

I also saw where the Bible offered to slaves, in America and elsewhere, had all the passages about freedom taken out. [Parts of the Holy Bible, Selected for the Use of the Negro Slaves (AKA “Slave Bible”) 1808. Though called “Holy,” it is deeply manipulative. Based on the KJV, it omits all entries that express themes of freedom.] That was in the Museum of the Bible tweets, by the way. I am reminded of today’s so-called Christian Right, who seem to omit any calling out to be kind to others not born to wealth and privilege. They also omit where the Bible mentions offering help to refugees and travelers, as so and so were strangers in a strange land. [Exodus 2:22, as said by Moses. Wow. Huh. Gee.]

See? Even God wants you all to be slaves!

Imagine the Bible with no Exodus. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

I hear that America is just going through a bad patch and everything will magically restore itself. Checks and balances, checks and balances will restore everything and we’ll all hold hands and skip. There will be glorious sunsets, apple pie, puppies and root beer for all!

I also have a bridge for sale. And have had a child with Bigfoot and Nessie lives in my bathtub and Jesus appeared on my English muffin just this morn.

Now!! What am I doing to ‘take back my country’? Sigh. Not much.

I think I’m going to have to actually do more than mope and whimper and retweet this or that. I once thought America would never have another civil war or reasons for massive protests or go through a Nixon-esque escapade ever again. That we had learned our lessons. That we were protected from such shenanigans. [Checks and balances, checks and balances…if repeated enough, it becomes a mantra and meaningless sounds.]

That we would not react like racist fucktwits over the next wave of refugees coming to our shores. [Cambodian boat people, Rwandan fleers of genocide, Somali…yeah, there’s a list here! Not to mention the Irish, the Chinese, the Germans, the Russians, the…ergh a burgha bug fug a lulu.] That we would not be like FDR and other Americans in the days before and during WWII turning away those running from Poland and Germany, etc…who happened to be Jewish. [We just had International Holocaust Day in January, after all. Never forget. Right? Uh huh.]

Notice those labels on those grabby hands, kiddos. Notice that a lot.

I keep waiting for others to wake up [omg I hate that fucking phrase. It gets used more than a box of Tampons but is far less sanitary.] so I don’t have to. I never went to sleep, of course. I [almost never, I promise!] ignored the good, the bad and the truly astoundingly ugly. Except when it was inconvenient or it caused waves or I didn’t want to face ridicule and scorn or even violence against me or…uh huh. I am no crusader. [Except with words once in a while. Maybe.] I wish I were. I prefer to be left alone so I can write silly things in peace.

from history.com. Thomas Nast anti-Irish political cartoon

I have been called an ugly bitch by my own family and learned to MUMBLE A LOT, internalize everything and go silent and hunch-shouldered and head down all the fucking time. Except I can’t please those who were never pleased with me to start with. Life lesson in there somewhere…

But I fear that time is over. Has been over for a long time. And I am hiding and being complicit and all the things that get thrown at those who hesitate. Who gulp at taking on the vociferous trolls and the earnest ranters alike. I’m so tired of waiting for the planet to find some sort of balance. I fear America will have to actually get a taste of fascist regime fuckery before it goes, oh, that’s bad, m’kay, lol, let’s get the gunz out and make speeches. We did have that one revolution, once, well, twice, and then there was that whole civil war thing but that was fought over state’s rights and…uh huh.

I also want to watch as those who think they won’t be affected by the current crop of awful laws being flung out and the mass deportations being planned and actually executed won’t be…affected or deported themselves.

It took me about half a year to get my correct birth certificate. It’s probably still not correct. I wonder what country my country will deport me to? Norway? Germany? France? Will they DNA test me before shipping me somewhere with twenty bucks in my pocket and English as my only language? [I can get by in Spanish, sort of. I am a true American, I never bothered to learn a second language. Gulp.]

I’m a liberal. A female. I can claim to be a Protestant on a good day. Brought up in the Lutheran church.

My grandmother’s birth certificate is in Norwegian. Will that affect my current ReelMurican status? Sure, it says she was born in Nebraska, but her mom and dad were not. [If they were, their parents were from the Old Country. Just sends a shiver down my spine!] She’s a damn anchor baby! I’m a product of CHAIN IMMIGRATION. Thanks, dad! Why didn’t you apply for that easy-peasy ReelMurican post card thingie so my entire family doesn’t get sent back to NorGerFranDutchWhateverlandia?? I don’t speak EUROPEAN! They’re all SOCIAL COMMIE SPACE LIZARDS THERE. Everyone has FREE HEALTH CARE AND PAYS TAXES OR SOMETHING!

God knows what’s actually on my mom’s side of things. There’s one account of a relative who snuck over here from Germany/Bavaria/Bohemia…not sure there. And worked her way through Nebraska [both sides of my family can claim Nebraska as their Old Country]. She cleaned or invented cats, not sure there at all, either.

She also married someone who was not the father of her illegitimate baby. Slutty ancestors! Also, though, whenever her husband got mad at her, he made her sleep out in the barn, with her illegitimate kiddie. They had kids, however, [the guy who did marry her other than the guy who was not allowed to marry her because she was an immigrant and not good enough…] so it was just her and her bastard son out there. In the barn. Being punished. Traditional marriage, huh? What a hoot! So, that’s fun. Thanks, mom. I’m a double anchor baby product. God damn it!

I’m trying to gear myself up for a political protest beyond retweeting stuff and holding arguments in my head with current, super-stupid, relatives over this or that. I write a tiny bit better than I talk, so. Maybe a poison pen screed or seven will fill in my Civic Participation certificates.

Andy Terney is the gentlemen in the pic. I wear that shirt all the time but it’s sadly a tad invisible for the moment.

While I wait for SuperPolitician to rise up and smack the bejesus out of the SuperVillains in the White House, a’course. Then I don’t have to bother with a feeble dribble of words. Hopes and prayers sent to me from me for that happy day.

I, meanwhile, work on crap and shit, because I have to claim I’m ‘working on something’ or I lose my cool Writer Street Cred with the other growling, snarling Writers that lurk near my part of the forest.

I have a collection of writings I’d never show anyone. And maybe one day publish under a name not mine and make tons of cash because it’s easily digestible fluff and not angsty, vague, endless examinations of why my parents didn’t really love me. [Are we writers all not, pathetically, Eugene O’Neill on his worst and best days?]

from the Roslyn School District

And then I remember someone thought of Sharknado and pitched it and people loved that.

And then howl with despair, inside my head, of course, at the state of my own serious ‘stuff’ and not write anything for the rest of the day. Or feel guilty I’d rather knock out some fluff-n-fold, which won’t advance my career in the least unless I show it to someone who has the power to publish it…if not self-publish it but then I’d have to go back through it all, tidy it up, fill in blanks I left because I wanted to get to the ‘good parts’ and…oh the work load alone. It’s both exciting and terribly not exciting at all.

So!!

I have some options for my next Serious Stuff Project.

I can think of something brand new, based on a short story or something I started. Or something yet in my head.

There’s Aftermath, my zombie short story that grew into an actual novella and now waits for me to finish it or call it a day. I left Hannah staring down into a giant crater outside of Boise, Idaho, with wild zombies closing in. I know. Zombie. I know but…well. And like every other god damn zombie blah ever, it’s NOT ABOUT ZOMBIES. It’s a METAPHOR FOR TENTACLE PORN AND ACID-WASHED JEANS and possibly something about politics and feminism and greyhound racing. Zombies, pfft! It’s never about zombies, is it.

There’s the Tales of Beastface Bay, my Wind in the Willows meets Modern Societal Wrongs meets the Marx Brothers rompings. No. I can already feel myself just going nope nope not yet in my head.

I can work on my third book in the trilogy of my House on Clark Boulevard fun. I need to read through the first two. Alice in Oregonlandia might need a reworking…ooooh. Maybe.

Work on my Honest Women full length play. Mm.

Curl up on the floor, in utter despair, at what has happened in a very short time, to America. Drink directly from vodka bottle. Eat a taco of leftover stuff from night before. Continue with this list.

Give up writing altogether and slit wrists. Mm. Maybe.

Take up writing fanfic. Either Watership Down or something in the Barbara Kingsolver area. I could really work the hell out of a Bean Trees/Twilight mashup. And all my characters could be badgers who act like British rabbits. Which would lend nicely to my Beastface Bay squrivvels and scribblings. [Made up word, ten points!]

Actually try to make heads and tales of my fluffy, can’t-show-to-no-one, pennings. Arrange them, put them in order, rewrite the truly awful ones. Fanfic…ahem, um, yes. Sparkly vampire badgers who spout Moliere…oh yes, spank me with a gray tie. [If you get that, we can now be friends.]

Start a new blog, under another name, full of naughty stuff. To see how popular that would be as opposed to my dull, proper plodding blog here. Anne Rice and A. N. Roquelaure, for instance. Maybe I’ve already done that! Ooooooh! [I haven’t, for the record.]

Take up knitting or adult coloring because it’s clear my writing is full blown crap on burned, moldy toast that no one outside of my patient, tolerant friends, would go near.

Take an online course in how to have self-esteem and sell your crap to friends and strangers alike for cash to pay things like bills.

Um…yeah. This has been fun. I should go watch the twirly skaters or stare at the sky, waiting for the snow. It still has not snowed here. I’m flabbergasted and hurt.

What about an earthquake full of bears? Bearquako. And then the sequels! Bearquako, Fists of Bees. Samantha Saves the World, Bearquako III. The Son of Bearquako! And of course, Bearquako, the End? And that has to be a question, because sequels…they sell. The marketing does itself.

Obviously, I have about two maybe good-ish ideas on here for NEXT ACTUAL PROJECT and some silly-Susan kinda wafflings. Wish me luck.

Molly and Jake. This is from last year’s Snowcalypse. See what I mean???

That damn groundhog. It’s lying. Punxsutawney Phil! You lying rodent bastard! Six more weeks of winter, huh? Winter never got started here! We didn’t even have that deep freeze cold that renders the pipes unable to bring water forth in the house. Where I have to lug in water from the only faucet outside that does not freeze in such weather and boil it on the stove to wash hair, dishes and underwear. Sometimes all at the same time. Ha ha ha. Ha.

from Travel and Leisure. 2018. A rodent, the American flag scarf, shadow cast.

I wish and pray and hope and sacrifice virgins to the local volcanoes and…zip, zilch, nada.

No snow, there is no snow. There’s spats of rain. There’s drizzles of rain now and then. It may seem weird that I’m complaining about an absence of frozen water.

Or whatever snow actually is. NASA probably lied to us about that, too, as well as hiding space aliens, using tax dollars to hide evidence of God and that whole moon landing thing. NASA and the UN are probably in cahoots. Cahoots!

Snow represents winter, it’s really that simple. When it’s winter, it should be snowing or snowy or snow-covered. I am a child of the four seasons trope. Summer is hot and winter has snow. Spring is when the snow melts and you finger the seed packets and maybe do some yard work as the dogs get muddy or pester you to throw the ball, throw the ball, throw the ball NOW NOW NOW. Fall is the smell of cinnamon and getting the blankets back on the bed because the nights have gotten nippy again.

Oh sure, every comfortable, comforting Americana notion about the seasons, sure, you betcha. I got em. I got em in a basket with a purple ribbon on it. In my head where such baskets full of seasonal Americana tropes live, breathe, fart, snore and drool.

Ah! Trouble and Margot are both gone now, but Molly is still here. All three have noticed a mouse on the far side of the fence…

Am I ignoring, sort of, that political suckstorm wrecking my country right now? You bet your patooties I sorta am. It’s a new month and I, being a conscientious and commercial-minded blogger now…um, thought, hey, I should post something. And since I finished my rewrite [Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane] and have not yet latched onto a NEW BIG PROJECT THAT WILL BE UTTERLY IMPORTANT AND CHANGE THE ENTIRE FACE OF LITERATURE AS WE KNOW IT, well. Here we are.

Gentle ramblings about an American tradition involving a rodent and a longing for the traditional march of the seasons. Traditional if you live in a place that has four seasons, of course. I’m quite aware that other places don’t have four seasons. In case someone comments that I live in a bubble and should get out more.

I am waiting for the snow. It’s been a rather warm January. Snow, now. Snow now! Allegedly, there’s a winter storm dancing toward my area, where it will spread snowflakes about as it does the bossa nova with the mountains, valleys and pockets of scrub, sagebrush-dotted expanses and riparian spots. I don’t want spring-like weather during my winter of discontent, dang it. How dare the weather gods omit winter weather for my area this year?? What’s that about? Do I need to find a virgin and a volcano?

There’s a volcano up the road a bit [ several, in fact. Mt. St Helens, Mt. Hood…] and I’m sure I can find a virgin on the local Boise Craigslist. It’s amazeballs what you can find on there if you’re really, really looking.

I “finished” Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane. Which did not go at all in the direction I thought it would.

Does writing ever go in the direction you think it should?

Oh my, every January post of mine has been about either cannibal bikers or some vague political rant. I haven’t been nice or positive!

I’m going back over my many words today. I think half of it is pretty okay and it doesn’t make me want to spork my eyes out with an actual spork while shrieking that I can’t write. That’s good, right? The second half, now…eh. Er. Maybe it’s ‘better’ than I think? Or far far worse?? Oh!

Who are Fine Young Cannibals, Alex?

PART TWO: THE TUNA MELT CONTROVERSY

I treated myself, yesterday, to a tuna melt from the Starlite in Vale. It’s my weird craving. I hate fish and onions and yet…that sandwich is full of both fish and onions. I don’t get it, I don’t try to understand my fatal flaws in wanting a hot tuna sandwich full of onions. I haven’t had a tuna melt in ages, like, oh, years. [Did I ever mention how abysmally poor I am and that I’m about two inches from being an actual agoraphobic?] It was way spendy and I felt SO GUILTY all afternoon. And into the night. I should have spent that money on orphans and owl rescues.

from Trip Advisor. The Starlite in Vale, Oregon

To eat tuna– that stuff that comes in the little cans, packed in oil or spring water, as a tuna fillet or chunk of tuna ordered at an eatery or taken home from some supermarket makes me openly gag– I have to doctor it up. I do mean kill that tuna taste. Lemon, sweet pickles, garlic…so that the few bits of fish mingling with glumps of mayo–

the grossest of the condiments; just gross, BRB, throwing up a bit–

doesn’t taste like tuna. At all. It tastes like sweet pickles. So why do I crave tuna melts?

Weird tangent. Okay.

Also, that tuna melt I ordered to go…was not that great. The at least two other tuna melts I’d ordered there, in years past, were good. Tasty. Tangy and oniony. Hot mayo. I think I have some issues and problems, oh my. Yep. Anyway. That sandwich I’d ordered and taken home did not…live up to my memory of how good the Starlite tuna melts are. Maybe I’m now cured of my tuna melt cravings. And will crave kale and cucumber sandwiches on GMO-free artisan bread baked by a collective of earth-loving vegans who keep tuna fish as pets, not food.

So. I will wait for snow, mourn that iffy tuna melt and read over my collection of words.

Hi again! I am ovaries-deep in Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane, my aggressively feminist scream against the patriarchy. Come back here! I am, wait for it, just kidding a wee.

I JUST NOW noticed that if you put ‘conservative’ and ‘Christian’ in front of your name, you can get away with anything you want. Like, oh, treason, chasing porn stars around with a Forbes magazine that features your own daughter on the cover, refusing to treat gay folks medically, deporting brown people mostly because they’re brown people, making it hard or impossible for swathes of people to vote in elections, blah blah blah dee blah dee blah.

I’m gonna switch to that magical and all-erasing R and then go on a murder spree. Where I murder, in the name of Jesus, everyone I find objectionable, morally repugnant, disposable and a drain on our resources, which should only go to oil companies and bald eagles.

I want that statement of ‘very fine people on both sides’ to apply to my side, a’course, only.

Oh. Shithole countries. Lest we ever forget. Shithole countries is how 45 referred to Haiti, all of Africa, El Salvador…and probably a host of other places. Why can’t we have more people from Norway come here…was, I believe, 45’s lament.

And most of actual Norway started puking or laughing right after that. Or so the liberal media claims! Don’t check with CNN, they’re in Killary’s pocket! NBC works directly for Soros! ABC, might as well be We Hate Trump Wah network!

from History.com and the History Channel’s Vikings. Lagertha–Katheryn Winnick– leading her troops into battle.

You know, “Vikings”. I guess they can leave their socialist shithole of a country on their longboats and invade us and take our gold, our women and our land. Like oh, they used to, way back when. i viking is, I believe, the term used, to describe those raids, where, I assume, the term ‘viking’ originates from. Maybe we should ask Europeans about that, since they still seem to have history classes at their socialist hellhole places of indoctrination…

from Vice

Oh! Our gubbermint is shut down. [America, in case you thought I was Canadian.] Which is, somehow and laughably, passed off as the fault of the two or three Democrats still holding office right now in DC. Ummm???

Yep, everything’s a go if you put an R behind your name. Good to know.

This has now become normalized. It’s normal for the American king wannabe to publicly go after news organizations…as it garners them ratings and cash when the White House does so. I noticed that. It’s a national version of Yahoo Answers right now. Fuck you, lol versus no, fuck you, lol.

Which draws in viewers on both sides in record numbers! It sells papers, it brings hits on websites, it creates smokescreens when actual shittery is brought forth or some piece of truly heinous, unAmerican legislation gets rushed through.

But.

I digress. I meant to post a small update on my rewrite of a gritty novel into a more commercial-friendly, happy, funny, light-hearted sweet-esque dark fairy tale romp.

Novel! Must focus.

The ideas churn through my brain meat, oh yes. I am tying up this, that, the other, so it all makes a sort of sense that Western lit readers really seem to prefer in their Western literature.

Unlike real life, where things just happen and entire threads go nowhere and people do things without a tragic backstory to explain their every last little action in the present…my novel happily chugs along picking up easy-peasy happy little this and that to explain why X is X.

As my novel is art and not a ‘real life, let them see the long hairs on the beauty’s chin, sort of effort’, I think it best I strive toward a coherent three-fourths sort of project. As it will never be whole or perfect and is that not the entire beauty of novels, writing, art itself?? That the artist never declares, weeee, that’s perfect, never gonna obsesses about that one sentence in that one paragraph ever ever ever again!

Of course, that’s how we got those three weird and awful Star Wars prequels…so. Grain of sand, babies. Grain of sand.

from Nevada Design.

Oh. So. I got a flash about the Snitty Ratballs and the Glitterbugs of Boise, Idaho. What if the Ratballs are…oooh. You’re gonna have to wait! But it was HUGE. It was BIGLY. I had to go back, to nearly the beginning, and INSERT tidbits to support the story that reveals itself in tidbits to me throughout the day. What if Amy Octopus and Vance Romance came to Winnemucca because Boise had been…ooooh. Oh yes, I have actual thoughts where ‘Glitterbugs’ and ‘Amy Octopus’ march through alongside ‘should I microwave a burrito for lunch or make a sammich’.

I did get a bit political this time around but I also managed to swing it back around to my desperate bid to fill my silly time on this earth with writings about cannibal bikers and the Silver State. Surely, that’s worth a bowl of oatmeal? As ever, thanks for reading and BUY MY BOOKS. They’re awesome. Awesome!

from Twitter. A lion figures in my story, a lot. As metaphor and deus ex machina and convenient convenience. Yay!

The snow remains a teasing little flirt, hinting she might show up but then sending flipping rain or fog or record-breaking temperatures instead. I sigh! Wherefore art thou, snow? I needeth thou! I enjoyeth walkies in your depths.

I went outside just yesterday. Spring, allegedly, decided she wished to park her buttocks on Eastern Oregon like the unwelcome crackwhore she can be at times. Get thee gone, Spring! Blue skies, mild weather, mud. What the eff??!! I left the pavement and nearly sank to my ankles in sticky goo. What the effing eff???!!! No! NO! This cannot stand. Snow, stop teasing us here and arrive in big white pretty snowflakes that we will curse with many curses once we have to go anywhere.

An update. On Remarkable Women.

I am on Chapter Ten. Yes, go ahead and applaud and cheer and bust out the Keystone Light, Icehouse Brew edition. [I bet you think I made that up…]

Yesterday, I was fuddling about, after my abortive attempt to go for walkies, when I had an actual epiphany of a moment. What if the Snitty Ratballs already….HA HA HA HA HA. Joy. My mind threw forth a hoary old chestnut of storytelling and my heart just started singin’ arias. Wheeee. Because that hoary old chestnut works. It glides somewhat neatly into place and it won’t take much tweakage to incorporate it back into the narrative. Yay!!!

Snitty Ratballs? Wha?

I’ve set up a DYSTOPIAN afterworld, so I can yank up names from my Silly Name Generator all I wish. They’re a fable within my dark fable, so to speak. Intrigued? Mmm!

I read, in a cynical and tired bid to drum up business for my words and phrases, that one needs to advertise a book before it’s even conceived. Start banging a giant set of virtual skins well before you actually write anything. Marketing. Everyone has talent! MY imaginary iguana has talent! It’s the marketing end you need to master and dominate and tie up with its own panties.

Anyway…

Where was I?

Ah, snow, a hot January and my current Important and Real writing project.

from the Nevada Travel Network. Fallon, NV. Obviously before my recounting of current events takes place…

I’m humming along, as they say. I’m enjoying myself as I type words. I’m giggling most foully at certain portions and then self-censoring at other portions because…cannibals. I’m challenging myself to come up with new words and such that people would toss about after some world-wide fuckitall war had happened. I’m looking up stuff about Fallon, Nevada, which, for some reason, presented itself as Ground Zero of my dark and now slightly funny and almost light-hearted romp of a tale. The Top Gun school is nearby. They have petroglyphs in the hills nearby. Farming community, small town, an hour from Reno. Cottonwoods. A bird sanctuary. Carson River. I’ve been there. Most of my hasty research won’t be tapped. But it’s there. It’s there and that’s a comforting feeling.

Okay! I need to return to Disney-fying my cannibal bikers versus the three old sisters Magnum Opus. Excerpt? I never thought you’d ask, my dears!

***

From Chapter One of the Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane:

“I don’t know. Men need things named so they can own them,” Laura said in her suddenly new restless way. “Wouldn’t it be better to be a part of the new world order than hiding from it or fighting against it? Shouldn’t we get our bottoms on the ground floor of whatever happens? I could eat some human flesh, if it had a sauce or something on it. You wouldn’t even know what it was. Some ketchup. You’d think it was pork. Long pig! That’s what human flesh is called, or was called. I think it’s just called food nowadays.”

“It’s a sin to eat other humans,” Lily said in her final, that’s it, way.

“A sin? Worse than being killed and eaten yourself? Or starving slowly to death in this darkened, dusty old house in the middle of the damn Nevada desert? Listening to two old biddies talk about birds and the Lord?? Worse than having to bite your tongue during that?”

“We are not in the middle of the Nevada desert.” Lily pointed out. “And what is wrong with you, sister? What?”

“I told you about those little blue and gold birds. I’m sure I did.” Violet studied her knitting, frowning. “Why do I keep dropping stitches? You’re an old biddy as well, Laura. You never talk, that’s not our fault.”

“I don’t want to sit here in this house anymore. And wait for them to come find us. The monsters always win in real life, Lily. They always win. There is no justice.None. Not for three old broads, not for your Jesus and not for anyone else…but monsters. Let’s be monsters. Let’s join them. We can cook their food. Wash their clothes. We’re women. We’re useful! Men think they always run the world. But women do the actual work. We could work for the monsters. What’s wrong with that?”

from Unpopped Cinema. This has nothing to do with this rewrite. Nothing. Enjoy!